


Definitions

by Calla_Lilies



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Conspiracy, F/M, Royai - Freeform, Royai Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calla_Lilies/pseuds/Calla_Lilies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tired Riza Hawkeye encounters a word with distinctly negative connotations in the dictionary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definitions

She savors the smell of old books as she enters the hospital’s small patient library. It’s not much, just a few chairs and a neat line of bookcases. The books are a motley collection, but Hawkeye can see that most are old and worn, probably donations. 

It’s a far cry from the medical library in the other wing, which is clearly better cared for and more up-to-date (as one would hope, given the amount of funding the military hospital received). She’s already visited that one, and ferried back an armload of books for the colonel, but this errand didn’t require the hike back.

A tired, irritable, but determined Roy Mustang had come across some arcane word in one of the books that neither of them recognized and he’d sent her off to get the definition. She half-thinks he made up this errand just to get rid of her so he could self-flagellate alone, or maybe he’s just feeling guilty about the brutal dressing down he gave her earlier, but it’s going to take much more than that to get her any further from him than one of the libraries. She doesn’t even like being here, but she’d sent the others home to get some rest. Hawkeye will be here until she’s sure Mustang’s not going to do anything stupid. He’s angry, and they’ve been together long enough for her to know that this is when he’s most likely to act as the reckless ass he can be. His earlier outburst still smarts, despite the obvious (to her) fact that he’d been lashing out at her for scaring him so badly.

She sighs, breathing in the scent of books again. She loves it. She ought to hate it, probably. Her father’s study had been rife with the smell of old tomes. But more than that, the slightly vanilla-like scent reminds her of the man’s apprentice. Roy. 

Every time they’ve moved, she’s helped him pack and unpack his things. It makes sense, and it’s safe. She doesn’t have many belongings, and he always waits until the last minute, which results in a rush. It’s something friends do, so it’s not too suspicious that they spend the day together, and they ask teammates to help, so they aren’t alone. Most of the boxes she carries on those days contain books, old alchemy texts, history books, books on economics, and the odd novel. The smell brings back good memories, and the association with Mustang is reinforced every time she has to roust him (awake or otherwise) from document storage spaces.

But now she’s getting distracted, so she shakes herself and makes for the dictionary, which lies open on a podium near the door. But as she raises a hand to flip to the T’s, her eye falls on one word that stands out near the bottom of the page like an accusation. 

Conspiracy n. 1. An agreement to perform an illegal, treacherous, or evil act. 2. A combining or blending together, as if by evil design. 3. Law an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or to accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.

Illegal? Most certainly. Treacherous? Technically. Evil? No. She knows evil acts by now. Theirs in trying to bring down the homunculi, are far from qualifying. A combining or blending together, they most certainly are. Their team is a mixed group, and there are far more than two of them, but everyone brings something to the table. They are practically family. The evil design, again, she’ll leave to the homunculi. 

Yes, their plan fits the definition of conspiracy nearly perfectly. Some days she still marvels at it. She, Riza Hawkeye, timid daughter of a skilled, reclusive alchemist, should not be here. And she wouldn’t be, if it weren’t for Roy Mustang. 

He has very deliberately never demanded that she follow him or assumed that she would. But she has, and he’s had a profound influence on her life, all leading to this. She’s shared her father’s secrets and followed him into the military. Not because she loved him. She didn’t, then. But she did admire his courage and resolve, his certainty and purpose. Back then, he was brimming over with hope and optimism. Hope was an infrequent guest in the Hawkeye household before he came. His hope had taught her to do the same. She’d followed him into the military with the same stars in her eyes that her father had warned Roy about. 

Every step of the way, she has made the conscious decision to stay with him. With her support, and Maes’, those same traits that had first drawn her to him grew to be his strengths, and their conspiracy, born of guilt and hope and determination in a blood-soaked desert, grew. She was the first to follow him, and over the years she’s fallen in love with Roy Mustang’s resolve and hope for the future, and the man himself. 

Her father introduced them, not knowing what he set in motion. The war forced them to cling to his dream together to stay sane. But it was the planning that followed that gave them a common purpose, a goal to pin their hopes on, and kept them together long enough to fall in love. If that’s a conspiracy, Riza doesn’t care a jot for the word’s negative connotations. If that’s a conspiracy, in one is exactly where Riza Hawkeye, who is no longer the timid daughter of a skilled, reclusive alchemist that she was when she first met Roy Mustang, is meant to be.

She turns the pages, burying the word under several hundred pages of its peers. She has enough conspiracies in her life. Right now, she needs another definition and to get back to the colonel. Her last thought on the matter is that, if she had to be in a conspiracy with someone, she could think of no partner in crime she’d rather have than Roy Mustang.

Despite the fact that he could be a complete ass sometimes.


End file.
